An Unfortunate Article / Fernando Dámaso

Juventud Rebelde masthead from earlier years

Fernando Damaso, 26 March 2017 — In a mis-timed article, a journalist from the newspaper Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth), a self-proclaimed Cuban youth, visits Hiroshima and unleashes her personal feeling about the events of 6 August 1945. She says she “is pained,” that “August in Hiroshima is forever” and shocked that a survivor, after the passage of 71 years, bears no grudge, and that “in Japan forgiveness is long-overdue subject.”

Then, instead of understanding that forgiveness is a sign of wisdom, she speaks about “the fiery blood of Cubans,” and says “it is hard to understand it.”

She’s right: We Cubans lack the wisdom necessary to forgive, and what’s more, to ask for forgiveness. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are pending subjects here, despite the fact that our mambises — the original freedom fighters of a previous century — at the end of a real war, knew how to forgive.

These last 58 years are filled with bad examples. In Cuba hatred has overcome love, even though Jose Marti made it very clear that love builds and hatred destroys. The problem is that the example of Marti is used according to political convenience: one part of his thinking is manipulated and published and the other is hidden.

The journalist, to ride the wave, goes even further and addresses the visit and words of President Obama, when he was here. She says, “But that a victim of the Holocaust leans on his words to talk about the most painful moment? That’s more than I can stand.”

Despite everything, I understand it: if she were not spiteful, filled with hatred and a practitioner of intolerance, it would be very difficult for her to write for Juventud Rebelde.

It is striking that “at this stage of the game,” when it is already lost and it will end very soon, instead of drawing useful conclusions from her visit, she shows herself to be so dogmatic. These are times to forgive and not to accumulate rancor and historical hatreds that, as can be seen, contribute absolutely nothing: Cuba is an example.

You have to know how to “turn the page” and not get stuck in the past. Japan demonstrates this with its spectacular development without losing its national dignity. It would be wise to learn from them.

Urban Slums Report: The Case of Havana, by Mario Coyula – 2003

Click on image to open report. The report contains an excellent guide to housing in Havana and its terminology, for example use of the term "barbecue" for a makeshift platform built to gain floorspace.

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